In regard to Armenia and Russia, if this deal leads to peace and security in the area, and among all nations of the area, then it would benefit them greatly; since Armenia will be linked with Russia and others in CU in the near future, Armenia's economic role will be enhanced as a passage route or hayway to the Gulf and the Far East by way of Armenia>Iran. Those countries of CU all will benefit from this new access route via Armenia into the Middle East and the far Orient.

Locally Armenia & Iran will be able to go ahead with the construction of a hydro-power plant in Meghri, at their borders; but mostly Armenia will go ahead and finish the construction of the railway system linking it with Iran's well-developed railway system. Rail-cars filled with merchandize will go both ways: up & down, in a modern version of the Silk Road. They will pass through Georgia in sealed railroad cars or containers without being opened as per agreement with Georgia.

However, a bad deal is a bad deal is a bad deal is a bad deal...because Israel's interest has not been taken into consideration. The majority of nations on earth import their uranium to run their nuclear power plants, Iran refuses to import and rather is working to produce its own nuclear fuel, this puts Iran under suspicion for wanting to use the nuclear fuel it produces and enriches to build nuclear bombs and join the very exclusive league of nations with nuclear weaponry.

Any deal with Iran should have required the end of Iran’s enriching of uranium projects and demolition of its plutonium reactor under construction. Like many other nations Iran is able to import its enriched uranium for peaceful energy production; Iran has the right to use nuclear energy but does not have the right to enrich plutonium because its ambitions are very clear in regard of its role in the Middle East. Iran may not use the would be nukes for war purposes but the mere possession of them gives Iran a strong voice, position and leverage in the affairs of the Middle East. And that is what Iran is after mainly.

Israel now, in isolation and driven by fear for its security, would consider launching in the near future, or sometime in the next decade, a preemptive strike on Iran to stop it from acquiring nuclear weapons or enriching plutonium, and who knows Israel may be thinking it will save the world from a nuclear Armageddon started by the Muslims, a WW3, in the same way that Germany or its Hitler did in 1939. All premonitions indicate that Iran will have its ways and be a winner, a win that would eventually end by failure and own destruction.

By a margin of 2-to-1, Americans support the nuclear deal struck with Iran over the weekend. In addition, Americans are strongly against using military force should Tehran renege on the agreed terms, a Reuters/Ipsos poll revealed Tuesday.

According to the survey, 44 percent of Americans support the interim deal signed by Iran and the P5+1 powers: US, Russia, UK, France, China, Germany and the European Union. Twenty-two percent oppose the deal.

Under the deal struck on Sunday night, Iran agreed to freeze its nuclear program for the next 6 months and cease construction work on the Arak reactor. In addition, Tehran agreed to stop enriching uranium beyond 5 per cent in a bid to allay fears that it seeks to construct a nuclear weapon. In return, sanctions on Tehran’s economy will be lightened, allowing Iran access to $4.2 billion in funds frozen as part of financial sanctions.

Though Americans didn’t indicate trust in Iranian intentions, the survey showed Americans are not interested in new US military involvement after long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even if the deal doesn’t hold, 49 percent said they want the US to increase sanctions on Iran, and 31 percent want further diplomacy. Only 20 percent want to use military force against Iran.

Congress, for its part, has already demonstrated appetite for further sanctions on the country. The House of Representatives has moved forward legislation that would increase pressure on Iran, though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said the Senate will not take up the issue until after the legislature’s Thanksgiving break.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already condemned the nuclear deal, saying the world has become a more dangerous place.

"What was achieved last night in Geneva is not a historic agreement, it was a historic mistake," Netanyahu told his cabinet Sunday. “Today the world has become a much more dangerous place because the most dangerous regime in the world took a significant step towards obtaining the world's most dangerous weapon.

"Israel is not committed by this agreement,” Netanyahu said. “The regime in Iran is committed to destroying Israel. [But] Israel has the right and obligation to defend itself from any threat, [and] will not allow Iran to develop a military nuclear capability.”

Netanyahu said that the international community had actually “agreed for the first time to uranium enrichment in Iran, while ignoring Security Council resolutions that they themselves promoted.”

US Secretary of State Kerry assured Israel will be safer over the next six months due to the agreement reached in Geneva.

Though “Israel is threatened by what has been going on in Iran,” the deal will keep the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program under supervision and control, said Kerry.

"But I believe that from this day - for the next six months - Israel is in fact safer than it was yesterday because we now have a mechanism by which we are going to expand the amount of time in which they (the Iranians) can break out (toward making a nuclear bomb),” he told CNN Sunday.

The Reuters/Ipsos online poll, conducted from Sunday through Tuesday with 591 respondents, has a credibility interval of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

EU will likely ease sanctions in place against Iran in December, said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. The announcement comes hot on the heels of a landmark deal over Tehran’s nuclear program that ended a decade of diplomatic deadlock.

The European Union will ease sanctions imposed on Tehran “in December,” the French foreign minister told radio Europe 1 on Monday. Fabius added that a meeting between EU foreign ministers had been scheduled for the coming weeks to discuss the lightening of the sanctions.

Although Fabius did not specify which sanctions would be lifted, he said that the move would be “reversible.”

“We are doing the same as the American side,” said Fabius. The P5+1 reached a deal with Iran in the early hours of Sunday morning that will allow Tehran access to $4.2 billion in funds frozen as part of the financial penalties imposed on the country.

The agreement will allow Tehran to continue enriching uranium, but only to 5 per cent, a far cry from the 90 per cent needed for the construction of an atomic bomb. Minister Fabius said that although the international community had agreed to let Iran continue enrichment, the deal does not acknowledge Tehran’s “right to enrichment.”

“Iran cannot do whatever it wants, there are specific limitations,” he said. After the deal was clinched the international community has diverged somewhat in its interpretation of what it means for Iran’s nuclear program. Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi wrote on Twitter that the right to enrichment had been recognized in negotiations.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov intimated that Iran’s right to enrichment has been acknowledged.

“This deal means that we agree with the need to recognize Iran's right for peaceful nuclear energy, including the right for enrichment, Lavrov told Russian press following negotiations.

In contrast Washington said that while it accepted Tehran’s right to a “peaceful nuclear program,” its right to enrichment had not been acknowledged.

“The first step, let me be clear, does not say that Iran has a right to enrich uranium,” said Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that anyone trying to undermine the nuclear deal with Iran would be “discouraged,” adding that this includes Israel.

“We would discourage anybody in the world, including Israel, from taking any steps that would undermine this agreement and we will make that very clear to all concerned,” Hague told the UK parliament.

The Geneva has, for the most part, been hailed as a success by the international community and a step towards the normalization of relations with Iran. However, Israel has opposed the deal and condemned it as a “historic mistake.”

At a cabinet meeting on Sunday Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel was not bound by the new agreement

“The regime in Iran is committed to destroying Israel. [But] Israel has the right and obligation to defend itself from any threat, [and] will not allow Iran to develop a military nuclear capability.”

When asked if he feared the possibility of a preventative, Israeli strike, Fabius said he did not because “no one would understand” such a move “at this stage.”

Israel, Saudi Arabia, and some of the other Arab Gulf states are
deeply sceptical of the Barack Obama administration's efforts to
reach a deal with Iran limiting its nuclear program and to improve
U.S.-Iranian relations generally.

Washington's traditional Middle Eastern allies warn that the Islamic
Republic cannot be trusted, and that Washington must not reach
a deal with Iran that either fails to adequately limit Iranian
nuclear ambitions, or which Tehran has no intention of abiding by
even if it does. Better ties offer the best opportunity to change how
Tehran calculates the costs and benefits of hostile behavior toward
Washington's traditional allies in the Middle East.

Israeli and Saudi leaders in particular are adamant about this, and
are frustrated, angry, and mystified that the Obama administration
knows of their concerns about Iran, but is attempting to reach an
agreement with it anyway. What their behavior reveals is that it is
not just Iran whom Israeli and Saudi leaders don't trust, but also
the Obama administration and Washington more generally.

While Israel and Saudi Arabia (among others) have had good reason
to fear the Islamic Republic of Iran in the past, the strong degree
of Iranian-U.S. hostility motivated Washington to contain Iran -
and its doing so benefited Israel and Saudi Arabia. What Israeli
and Saudi leaders now fear is that if Iranian-U.S. relations improve
significantly, Washington will no longer act so strongly to contain
Iran.

Indeed, the U.S. may press Israel and Saudi Arabia to soften their own
policies toward Iran so as not to hinder the process of Iranian-U.S.

rapprochement or Tehran's progress in "rejoining the international
community."

Something like this may well occur. And it might not just be the
Obama administration doing this. Because U.S. sanctions against
Iran have been so very tight and because U.S. public opinion has
viewed Iran so negatively for so very many years, there have been
few vested interests in the U.S. (apart from a portion of the small
Iranian-American community) willing to lobby for improved ties between
Washington and Tehran.

But as Iranian-U.S. relations improve, this will change. U.S.

corporations - especially petroleum firms - have long wanted to do
business with Iran, but sanctions and Iran's negative image prevented
this. Improved Iranian-U.S. relations will result in U.S. business
being more willing to lobby for reducing sanctions (which, they will
argue, mainly benefit their competitors in Europe, Russia, and China).

Further, the prospect of improved Washington-Tehran ties may free the
Armenian-American lobby to argue that better Iranian-U.S. relations
would greatly help their homeland escape its over-dependence on Russia
vis-a-vis Turkey and Azerbaijan (neighbors with which Armenia has
long had difficult relations).

And despite its differences with Armenia, Azerbaijan - as well as
Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and U.S. petroleum companies active in them -
would welcome the opportunity to export petroleum via Iran. Further,
the U.S. military and all those concerned with containing the Taliban
may see a friendly Iran as a better route for supplying Afghan
government forces than either unreliable Pakistan or the long and
expensive route through Russia and Central Asia.

And being a professor, I cannot help but note that cash-strapped U.S.

universities would very much like to see the return of large numbers
of full tuition-paying Iranian students.

If all these - and probably other unanticipated - constituencies with
a strong interest in friendly Iranian-U.S. relations in the U.S.

arise, then Israel, Saudi Arabia, and others who now fear Iran will
find it difficult to press Washington to resume a tougher policy
toward Iran in the future. Anticipation of this state of affairs is
undoubtedly an important factor motivating Israeli and Saudi leaders to
try to forestall an Iranian-U.S. rapprochement now before this occurs.

What they do not appreciate, though, is that improved Iranian-U.S.

relations will lead to a similar process unfolding in Iran. The
prospect of improved Iranian-U.S. relations will allow those who
would benefit from it to argue in favor of this process and against
policies that undermine it.

While it is difficult for Iranian actors to argue against the position
that Iran must remain ever vigilant against U.S. hostility when U.S.

policy toward Iran is indeed hostile, it will be easier for them to do
so if they can point to a real prospect of an improved relationship,
or better yet, an actually improved relationship that has provided
benefits they do not want to lose.

To put it bluntly: when the ayatollahs and even the leadership of the
Revolutionary Guards can travel to and own property in the U.S., send
their children to college there, and earn money as consultants to and
partners with U.S. corporations, it is doubtful that they will want
to risk losing all this for the dubious benefits of issuing nuclear
threats or supporting ungrateful and unprofitable allies such as Hamas,
Hezbollah, or Assad.

Fearful Israelis and Saudis (along with their U.S. supporters)
reading this will undoubtedly claim that the Iranians want to "have
their cake and eat it too" through benefiting from improved economic
ties with the West in order to more easily build up their military
strength and support their militant allies.

But while those who fear Iran may believe otherwise, it will simply be
impossible for Tehran to build and maintain good relations with the
U.S. while at the same time pursuing hostile policies toward Israel,
Saudi Arabia, and others. The rapprochement process - and all of Iran's
benefits from it - would quickly end if it did despite the growing
U.S. and Iranian domestic constituencies seeking better relations.

The growth of these constituencies, though, could be powerful forces
acting to forestall counter-productive Iranian behaviour.

Hostile Iranian-U.S. relations have not served to put an end to
hostile Iranian policies toward Israel and Saudi Arabia in the past,
and are unlikely to do so in the future. An improved Iranian-U.S.

relationship will not lead to Iran becoming friends with Israel
and Saudi Arabia (which, of course, are not exactly friends with
each other).

Better ties between Washington and Tehran, though, offer the best
opportunity to change how Tehran calculates the costs and benefits
of hostile behaviour (if not hostile statements) toward Washington's
traditional allies in the Middle East.

Mark N. Katz is a professor of government and politics at George
Mason University in Fairfax, VA. He is the author of many books and
articles, including Leaving without Losing: The War on Terror after
Iraq and Afghanistan (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012).

Iran’s Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi: Civil Disobedience for a Free Iran
BEVERLY HILLS — In an interview with Breitbart News on Monday, Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi called for greater American and international support for Iran’s freedom-craving people.

The crown prince is the son of Iran’s last king, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. He is the president of the National Council for Free Elections in Iran.

“We realize that the current regime is not going to voluntarily leave the scene, which is why we have put together a campaign of resistance and civil disobedience,” Pahlavi told Breitbart News. “And that’s why we’ve been in contact with a variety of secularists within Iran representing all sorts of views from workers to teachers to labor unions” to other organizations.

Over half of Iran’s population is under the age of 40. The crown prince noted that the advent of social media and technology is a priceless tool in the quest for freedom. “And fortunately in this world of social media and Internet communication most of the give and take happens by means that were not available 20 years ago,” he said.

Pahlavi recently penned a letter to President Donald Trump congratulating him on his victory. Asked how he views Trump and his administration with regard to U.S.-Iran relations, he said, “I think the current president has indicated that he wants to be much more in support of strengthening the people’s hand and, at the same time, weakening the regime. And I think that’s exactly what we were hoping to hear.”

He said this rhetoric and support “should not be limited to the U.S,” adding that he’s “always advocated that the empowerment of any people is always the best solution at the end, especially when they have to fight very oppressive regimes. So, engaging with the people, helping civil society in these countries, is the quickest path to maximizing the success of such nations to overcome whatever struggle they are facing.”

Iran’s former recently died. The businessman had a checkered political past and was considered the father of Iran’s nuclear program. While some within the regime described his as a “man of peace,” he was better remembered by many of the Iranian people as an oppressor and for having orchestrated several international terrorist atrocities.

The crown prince also commented on the recent death of Iran’s former president, Hashami Rafsanjani, who was described in the media as a “man of peace” but who was the father of Iran’s nuclear program, as well as an oppressive ruler. Pahlavi compared Rafsanjani’s death to the passing of Cuba’s late dictator Fidel Castro: “It’s not the same anymore, no matter how many more junior cadres remain. And in that sense, more of a void will be created.” He noted the importance of making sure that “the void is filled with the proper alternative. That’s something everyone should be concerned with.”

Political scientist Levon Shirinyan thinks that Iran should assist Armenia in strengthening its independence. He thinks that Iran should understand Armenia’s military-political situation. Levon Shirinyan says that Armenia should work on strengthening the ties with Iran, as Armenia-Iran relations can be even stronger. The political scientist assures that in case we are not active, Iran may go other way and may even reconcile with Azerbaijan. “There are people in Armenia who hinder the rapprochement between Armenia and Iran. These people are still hear and will continue to hinder the process,” said Levon Shirinyan.

To remind, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif arrived in Armenia yesterday to meet with Serzh Sargsyan and the RA Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan, as well as to participated in the opening ceremony of the Armenian-Iranian business forum.

Iranian president visited families of Armenian martyrs fallen during Iran-Iraq war

President of Iran Hassan Rouhani visited on Sunday the families of Armenian martyrs Georgekeshish Harutun and Edvin Shahmirian on Christmas Eve and spoke with them, Iranian sources reported. Saluting patience and self-sacrifice of families of great martyrs, President Rouhani said the entire Iranian nation defend blood of our dear martyrs who defended the Iranian land by giving their lives.

To note, some 17,000 Armenians participated in Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) with 260 of them becoming martyrs in the course of war fought between 1980 and 1988.

During the visit, Dr. Rouhani also stressed that in Iran, all religions and ethnic groups stand by each other in happiness and sadness, saying “our people have always stood by each other and will continue to do so,” Mehr agency quoted the president as saying.

Referring the conditions of Christians in the Middle East, the President said: “Christians have suffered a lot of damages in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon from terrorists and this was also the case for Muslims.”

Therefore, terrorists created conditions in which fates of Muslims and Christians became interwoven more strongly requiring both sides to assist each other more than the past, he underlined.

If the current Iranian government is removed amid these recent protests and a pro-US government is put in its place, wonder how that will affect Armenia and artsakh. I think it will put more pressure on Armenia.